Trader Horn received a 1931 Best Picture Academy
Award
nomination
(losing to RKO's epic western Cimarron). It was the
first
non-documentary
to be filmed in Africa. Trader Horn is based on the
sensational 1927
memoirs
of Alfred Aloysius Horn (Cowritten with Ethelreda
Lewis). Director
"One-take
Woody" Van Dyke in 1929 spent almost 10 months in
production in the
African
jungle with director of photography Clyde DeVinna
making sure the film
looked authentic, but were faced with many disasters
in the unsafe
region
and were called back by the studio who now wanted it
to be filmed as a
talkie. A second unit crew was secretly sent to the
safer regions of
Mexico
to get their needed authentic footage and was later
accused of cruelty
to the animals as they starved several lions in order
to get them to
attack
the deer and hyenas brought into the country for the
film. It was
filmed
for a lavish budget, at the time, of three million
dollars, but proved
to be a popular film for MGM and easily turned a big
profit for the
studio.

In darkest Africa, veteran white hunter Trader Horn
(Harry
Carey)
takes the young greenhorn son of a late friend Peru
(Duncan Renaldo,
Rumanian-born
actor) up an undiscovered river by canoe in the hopes
of trading for
the
valuable ivory. The fierce Masai warriors' chilling
chants force them
to
camp at night by a river bend filled with crocodiles.
During the night
intrepid missionary Edith Trent (Olive Carey, Harry's
wife) passes by
their
campsite and Horn warns the lady he calls "the bravest
woman in all of
Africa" that the native drums mean danger. She is
nevertheless
determined
to go on to Opangu Falls, even at night, because she
heard her daughter
Nina (Edwina Booth) is living there with a savage
tribe. Twenty years
ago
Edith's husband was killed by a raiding tribe and her
baby daughter was
kidnapped and, now, at last, she believes they can be
reunited. Horn is
allowed to follow behind at a distance to make sure
she's safe, but is
not allowed to accompany her because she feels that
"the presence of
white
males with guns will only startle the warriors into
violence." Horn
vows
to search for her daughter if anything should happen
to her. At the
falls,
a few days later, Edith is found dead by the white
hunters and their
loyal
gun-bearer Rencharo (Mutia Omoolu).

Horn keeps his promise and the picture turns into a
travelogue of
jungle life filled with enough animals to stock the
Bronx Zoo twice
over.
There are elephants, lions, zebras, wildebeests, a
black mamba snake,
giraffes,
ostriches, baboons, leopards, panthers, hyenas,
warthogs, gazelles,
wild
dogs, impala, buffalo, a jackal, and two charging
rhinoceros. The
rhinos
are killed after stampeding to death one of the
natives. The white
hunters
are captured by the savage tribe and finally meet the
wild-eyed blonde
Nina, who has become their queen and takes on the
mantle of the White
Goddess.
The adventure from here on turns on not getting burned
to death on the
stake, bringing Nina back to her own people, and
escaping from the
clutches
of the savage tribe.

The outdated film remains interesting as a curio
featuring
a cannibal
dance, an encounter with Pygmies, and great animal
shots; but, is
saddled
with a thin story. But it has clinched its place in
film history
because
of its groundbreaking style of film-making. It also is
remembered for
the
gossip surrounding Edwina's affair with married costar
Duncan, whose
wife
sued her, and Edwina's later suit of MGM because she
contacted on
location
a neurological disease. She won a big settlement from
the studio and
lived
to a ripe old age, but the suit resulted in her being
blackballed in
Hollywood.